What is it about personal responsibility that so offends the hunger lobby?

The activist set is in a frenzy this week over Mayor Bloomberg’s decision to forgo extra federal food-stamp money that would have gutted the city’s efforts to move recipients into jobs.

And they’re saying some pretty stupid things in the process. “Saying that in order to get a measly portion of food you have to work extra hours just doesn’t seem like a way to promote economic growth and promote self-sufficiency,” huffed Joel Berg of the city Coalition Against Hunger.

Funny, we thought that working for your supper was the definition of self-sufficiency – not to mention the foundation of economic growth.

As it is, Bloomberg’s stand is hardly draconian. He simply wants to keep in place on the city level a federal requirement, repealed by the stimulus bill, that limits able-bodied adults with no dependents to three months of food stamps – unless they either find a job or sign up for a city workfare program.

Again, the limit applies only to able- bodied adults with no dependents.

The city’s Work Experience Program, meanwhile, gives participants both a leg up with job skills and the dignity that comes with productive work.

Not a bad deal.

To be sure, keeping the work requirement would likely mean fewer federal dollars flowing into the city’s economy.

But that’s a small price to pay to keep New Yorkers from falling back into the cycle of perpetual dependency that characterized the pre-Giuliani years.

Indeed, far more worrisome is what might happen to cities whose leaders don’t have the foresight – or guts – to spurn the stimulus cash.

The nation simply can’t afford to let its stimulus-induced spending spree erase the lessons of ’90s – that forcing people to take responsibility for their situation is the only way to combat poverty.